Tennessee ranks 40th in the nation in voter registration and last in voter turnout. More than 838,000 adult Tennesseans are not registered to vote.

In the Volunteer State, some see this as a crisis in civic duty.

Now, two lawmakers from separate political parties and branches of government have a plan to change that.

U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, and state Sen. Steve Dickerson, R-Nashville, have proposed Project Register, an adult-geared spinoff of a nonpartisan project the two developed a couple of years ago to get 18-year-olds to register while they were still in high school.

“One of the bullet points that really shocked us was we had a very hot 2015 mayor’s race here in Nashville and there were fewer voters there than we had in this city in 1971,” Cooper said during a meeting with the USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee on Monday.

“That is just stunning. It shows how we have lost the ethic of voting and participation. It’s a little bit like civic clubs are having a hard time. Churches are having a hard time. We need to do what we can with the Volunteer State.”

Reaching adults in the workplace

In the high schools, Cooper said, teachers reminded students to vote and the message was relayed in modern mediums, such as rap videos featuring lyrics on the importance of voting.

Now, the pair want to reach adults in the workplace by getting employers to send out reminders to vote in company emails and links to online registration and to include voter registration information in company onboarding.

“The mayor’s race brought this to our attention,” Dickerson said during a news conference at the Nashville Public Library. “We realized that of voters in Davidson County between the ages of 18 and 25, only about 10 percent were even showing up to vote in the mayoral race. As a result, Congressman Cooper’s office and my office launched what I called a nonpartisan effort to register more young people to vote in our county. This is a continuation of those efforts."

Now that there is a link to click, Cooper and Dickerson said their goal is to market that link broadly through businesses in a way that can have a profound impact.

As of Monday, 75 businesses representing 125,000 employees have signed on to participate in the project. These businesses range from major corporations to local nonprofits to an association of real estate agents and local universities.

Nashville Predators President and CEO Sean Henry said Monday that he’s excited about his organization getting the chance to leverage the passion of Predators fans to get the message out.

“You’re going to start seeing (the voter registration message) a lot throughout Smashville and most certainly in our building because all the things that are in front of us, all of the challenges, all of the potential problems, we can only solve them if we turn more people out to vote,” he said.

Bank of America Nashville Market President Tyson Moore said his associates were shocked by the numbers Cooper and Dickerson presented on Tennessee voter turnout.

“We thought this is something we could absolutely effect change on,” he said. “The fact is that being able to cast a ballot is a great American freedom that we all have, and being able to get people out to the polls is certainly to protect the great democracy we all enjoy as citizens.”

Cooper said 99 percent of businesses approached in Middle Tennessee have signed on and the goal is now to move to the rest of the state.

Cooper and Dickerson said they expect the project to be a bipartisan campaign supported by Tennessee Republicans and Democrats. It is as important as ever for people to register to vote, with every state House seat, the governorship and a U.S. Senate seat up for grabs in 2018.

“This should be as uncontroversial as puppies and rainbows,” Cooper said.